


Trouble On The Line

by dagonst



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: M/M, Mind Meld
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-19
Updated: 2013-10-19
Packaged: 2017-12-29 15:39:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1007144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dagonst/pseuds/dagonst
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki, imprisoned, bored, and possibly insane, makes contact with Midgard but does not get quite the results he wanted.  Because when Tony Stark hears voices in his head, he talks back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Kinkmeme fill - the prompt was Loki/Tony, mental link. I wrote it before Iron Man 3 and thought I'd repost before it gets definitively jossed by Thor 2. Equal parts angst, crack, and cookies.

**0.**  
Midday. Symbolically, full daylight and clear sight. Practically, his keepers grow content in his docility; distracted by food, drink, and thoughts of the evening’s entertainments. Loki rises early, takes meals early, retires early; his ways are no longer questioned.

He has a toy, a trinket stolen from his one-time brother in the first minutes after their return from Midgard. At first it was merely a reminder, a touchstone in the too-familiar surroundings. In the dark he traced the raised lettering: _A hero of Earth made this and set his name on it, before I discovered he had no heart and threw him from his own tower. On Midgard, where I had purpose. And an army. I fell._

On Midgard, this polished thing is a device for communication. Likely Thor was supposed to try it on Asgard. Loki did; it does not work. But it gave him the idea of crossing that distance.

It might never bear fruit - Anthony Edward Stark might be long in his grave before the Aesir return to Midgard. But a man who places his name over cities might leave other marks, and those marks could be Loki’s. And it would please him to bend Stark after all, in thanks for his helpful advice. A diversion: he should not lie to himself. This is no proper scheme, no plan for escape.

Loki casts the spell; claws dig into his mind and then release, and it is done. Loki is careful to keep his own mind blank. He intends to speak and be heard when the time is right, but first he would observe.

**1.**  
“Very funny, now who the fuck are you? Which one of you’s in my head - Natalie, whatever your name is?” And everyone just went still, which means he said it out loud. And they think he’s insane.

“Of course they think I’m crazy. I think I’m crazy, there’s someone inside my head pretending to be wallpaper.”

...

“This is where you tell me _you_ know I’m not crazy. If you were wondering where to fit that in.”

It seems to be a little late for that.

“If you’re still here in thirty seconds, I kill the Westchester power grid.” And, echoed by Stark speaking aloud: “Jarvis, give me a countdown -”

Which means nothing to him; Stark will flail, and fail, and then he will move in. 

The countdown stops with a nonsensical phrase - ‘bag of cats?’ and a wave of what Loki interprets - wrongly, he hopes - as _glee_. There is no challenge in this game if Stark is already unhinged.

“I guess you’d know. Didn’t get to thank you properly for visiting Earth; come back never.” 

...

“Bag of cats is you, by the way. I can’t decide, should I call you Rudolph or Harvey?”

His name is Loki and always has been; he needs no other name, will answer to no other.

“You’re not answering anyway, cupcake, I’m holding up this whole conversation. Also, bullshit. But I’ll make you a deal.” Stark doesn’t wait for an answer. “You stop pretending we’re not sharing headspace, I’ll try to remember call you Loki.” 

And just then, the spell fails. Loki lies back, and remembers to breathe.

 

**2.**  
So Loki has a secret, more power than he’s been allowed. Alone on Asgard, he could contact Midgard if he desired. He should renew the spell at intervals - to confirm Stark’s continued existence, and whether the Chitauri have gotten that far. To plant seeds if he can.

Then, at midday, the link sputters back into existence. Loki sits down carefully. “Stark?”

“Loki. If you have any Asgardian seduction tips, keep them to yourself,” Stark thinks in his direction. “I’m doing fine.”

“I see?” Stark is talking to a woman, somewhere dark and loud.

“Doubt it. Nevermind. How’s prison treating you? Or, does Asgard have prisons? I’ve done house arrest, it sucks. Remember Coulson, you stabbed him? That was him.”

He killed a number of mortals; that was the one his brother reproached him for. 

“You’re doing that thing again, bag of cats. We all liked Coulson. Maybe a little better after he died, it usually works like that.”

“Yes, it - what are you doing?” He has been occupied conversing with Stark instead of observing - Stark has not been still - now has the woman somewhere else, close and dark, and she’s allowing him her mouth.

“Wondering if you were paying attention. Anytime you want to disappear again or just shut up, that’d be fine.”

Loki does not want to observe Stark’s couplings, cannot see how that could possibly hold his interest.

“You could learn something. I’m good at this, and - make love, not war, all that. What are Asgard’s sexual customs? The Greeks sure got around, with the shape-shifting, hey, are they real too?” 

Stark disappears again, before he finishes with the woman. It’s a relief; and not. Stark’s - activities - have left him partly aroused. He lets it fade; it was nothing to do with him to begin with.

 

**3.**  
Loki invented things when he fell, to maintain some sense of himself in the face of the void. This now, more than anything, resembles the lies he told himself, and when he closes his eyes he can feel: he has never stopped falling.

(What the actual fuck, Loki - what’s going on, _Loki_ , can you hear me? What the hell is happening over there?)

The mortal’s voice, in and out of his thoughts, intermittently impossible to ignore, shouting in a panic that Loki no longer feels, does not care to remember. I want it gone, he thinks finally.

(No, _I_ want this thing gone, that much crazy is distracting. Loki, you want to - I don’t know, eat something? Does anyone over there know about this, what is it, a flashback? Or is this what they do to people on Asgard, when they do whatever you did to them? Because if that’s it, Odin’s a dick and you can tell him I said so.) 

Is it madness? There is none to ask. But, is it madness?

(Seriously? You’re either falling through space thinking you’re back home, or safe back home thinking you never landed - either way you’re fucked. And you’re in my head the way I’m in yours, because of some magic you did. With my phone, right? You lifted it off Thor, I guess, impressive for a guy wearing chains. I’ll be really impressed if you can, y’know, stop it.)

The device - phone. That was never on Asgard before now. And if it is real, so is the rest. Is Asgard. Based on the testimony of voices in his head.

(One voice. I’ve got a name. Which you damn well know.)

Stark.

(Right. Tony. You threw me out a window. Good times.)

No, they were not. The tower, the heartless man. 

(Wow, never heard that one, it says - lies. It lies.

“Whatever, I don’t even want to know why you’re relieved. Long as you’re done with the endless void thing.”

“It is not void. It is... the universe, you would say. Everything that is. It cannot lie.”

Stark pours a drink - quick, familiar gestures. “So next time I should just tell you everything is alright.”

The laughter startles both of them, and Stark seems pleased. Confusing. “Yes. Very likely, yes.”

 

**4.**  
Darkness does not fall: it snaps into view with a dreadful clarity. Stark is in a cave, wounded, with electricity burning him, and water in his lungs and too near the unreliable power supply. The spell has strengthened, he thinks: every sensation of it distinct, from the sight of Stark’s ruined chest to the terror and pain of it. He can close his eyes against the sun, and be there entirely.

The captors, whoever they are, are breaking Stark for the sake of some pathetic machinery. His mind is already splintered into vivid fragments of events that cannot all be happening now. It is a waste; Stark had his talents, although obedience was not one of them. It would be - improper, if he bowed to weaker men.

“Calm yourself,” Loki says, and says it again and once more before Stark takes notice. Stark turns to him, which is - not possible, actually, he is in no direction relative to Anthony Stark. But Stark turns anyway, rounds on him. “What do you know, you’re _dead_ , you bastard!”

“I am neither of those things, as you well know.”

Stark appears to reconsider. “Then help me. I’ve gotta fix this, first thing.”

He means his heart. “That,” Loki informs him, “is a wound. You cannot mend flesh like iron. It may heal, if you live long enough.”

“I’m Iron Man,” Stark says, squinting as though he’s just now figured that out.

“You are dreaming,” Loki answers, and hopes Stark can sense his displeasure through the delusion. “I will not help you.”

“I have to fix this,” he repeats.

The interval ends, but not quickly enough. Loki does not sleep well that night, Stark’s fears competing with his own nightmares. 

 

**5.**  
“Was that you, the other night? You sounded like you, but you were Yinsen, it was weird. Don’t ask about Yinsen. If that was you, the interval is twenty-seven hours and seventeen point I dunno minutes on my end. When is it for you?”

“At the zenith of the sun, when I first cast the spell.”

“Adorable. Sorry, if you did catch me dreaming. Won’t happen again.”

“Rejoice that you will not share in my dreams, mortal. And keep yours to yourself.”

“It’s a deal. Look, we’ve got some time, I have questions.”

“Whose words are these?” The questions that Stark rattles off do not arise from his own mind.

“Special research team.” He does not name the Bifrost correctly, but that’s what he means.

“Why am I answering these questions? In your mind, Stark? I’m curious.”

“I don’t see you mindmelding for no reason and there’s no point unless you can get here. Planning to parachute in?” There are worse things than falling into a gravity well, Loki knows, there [i]are[/i] - “Okay, got it, definitely not. If Earth gets the bridge, you’ve got a better shot at it. Us being so weak-willed and puny and all.”

Stark is transparent: he wants his world to be a power. Against the Chitauri, the Jotnar, even Asgard. If he’s honest, the last thing he needs is a bridge that would bring the Chitauri closer to Asgard. Has he ever been honest?

“Come to the dark side, Loki. We have cookies.”

“Cookies.” The offer is not serious; but neither does Stark intend an insult.

“Cookies. Open bars, pretty girls, pretty boys. There’s got to be something you like.”

“ _Power_.”

Stark laughs. “Good luck with that, crazy. So they’re putting in a park where you flattened the city. I’ve put up for a statue, but Capsicle is pitching a fit, he wants a veto. I don’t see why, you know how many Captain America statues there are already? I said it didn’t have to look like him.”

Loki lets him ramble; listens, distracted, until Stark says. “I think that’s about it, should cut off in another minute.”

“Yes,” he agrees, not that he has paid any attention to the precise interval, or thought there was any reason to do so.

“Let me know if you think of anything about the bridge.” It’s not a bridge, even explaining that could take more years than Stark has left - and he’s gone, again.

 

**6.**  
The next time, Stark has a surprisingly accurate model of the Chitauri baseship. “What do you think?” Their communication is not true speech; if it were, Stark would be slurring and talking over himself, all at once. Scrambled and unpleasant and nearly painful. 

“I think you ought to sleep, Stark.”

“Fuck you, about this. What could this thing do, before I blew it to hell?”

“You believe I would betray my allies. Are you hallucinating?”

“It’s a hologram, don’t you have those? Your 'allies' belong to whoever was pulling your strings. C'mon, Pinocchio.”

It takes Loki time to sort through to find the sense, because Stark is also trying to think about the Bifrost and his own armor. And he _is_ hallucinating, although it may take his dulled mind some time to notice the quick flashes of dreams. “You are rambling, Stark. Out loud, if that makes some difference.”

“I’m talking about the ship. I’m right. I was right, there was no way you were winning, I didn't think you realized.”

“Failure is a possibility in any venture. Such as this one. Shut up, sleep, leave me alone.”

"One thing, just tell me one thing. What have your allies done for you lately?" And behind that, Stark wonders what they did for him before, when he turned up looking like death warmed over.

Stark has a point. "One truth, in exchange for your silence."

"It's a start."


	2. Chapter 2

**7.**

“Fucking - hi - again - can’t talk now, call back later.”

And a wave of vertigo hits, with as much sideways pull as down, gravity and acceleration, not like - 

“ _Fuck_ , no, just me, I’m flying, don’t wig out on me, I’ll fall out of the sky and this clown will think he did it.”

“You seem to be flying headfirst into a mountain. Why would I interfere?” Stark makes a nauseating turn-stop and something flashes past and explodes. 

“Okay. So this postage-stamp of a micronation, Latveria, you’ve never heard of it -”

“I have. Victor von Doom. Continue.”

“Great. By all means do not explain why you’ve heard of that guy. So apparently SHIELD did a fly-by and stuck a wing into their airspace, and these people have a liberal definition of hot pursuit. Oh, and flying robots. Which this von Doom asshat says are drones, but they’re robots. Wait, Wikipedia says I went to college with this guy. Huh.”

“Does your entire strategy consist of letting them nearly kill you?”

“SHIELD says Doom can filibuster the security counsel or something. And, big chunks of metal falling out of the sky, I guess, but we’re all keeping clear of cities anyway.”

“Their attacks on you are not sufficient provocation?”

“Fair point. Good point, I like it.” Hey Cap, these things are attacking me, I’m taking the rest out. And half a second of Captain America at volume before Stark cuts the sound and blows five Doombots away.

“That was fun. You’re a bad influence.”

“You want to be led.”

“Don’t read too much into it. I’ve always liked blowing things up.”  
. 

 

 **8.**  
It is some time - weeks, a month as Stark would count it - before Loki finds himself in another dream. He recognizes the false immediacy of it. Realizes, Stark has been taking pains to remain awake, no matter the hour on Earth. Awake, alone, unoccupied, sober: it ought to have been obvious. But all Stark has gotten for his machinations is what he can remember of the Chitauri, which he would give freely to any who oppose them; and a child’s explanation of the Bifrost.

The subject of this dream is less immediately disturbing. A chamber with a wall of windows overlooking the ocean, and he is the only one to notice the view. Stark is in the bed, coupling. With him. With Loki, as he was when he walked among Earth’s new heroes. He’d adapted his clothing to the times, enough of it is still present to recognize. When he touches the scarf, flung over a chair, his own mind supplies the consistency and warmth.

He looks down on both of them. “Stark.” 

“Wow, hey. That’s right, you can - do that thing. Yes.” And Stark holds a hand out to him, trusting and surely unaware. His simulacra has a wild look about it - he almost asks, was that how it was? But he should not betray himself. He takes Stark’s hand, joins in Stark’s bed, and keeps the mortal between himself and the false copy. Stark climaxes with the imposter buried inside him, with his teeth at Loki’s throat. His hands so warm on Loki’s body that it nearly seems real. 

“I have need of you,” he says. It is a failure, perhaps; a loss of control, but perhaps an unimportant one. Stark smirks and says something he considers clever, lying back with an arm around his neck. Loki closes his eyes to the world, to everything but the heat of Stark’s body underneath him, moaning in an imagined ecstasy. He uses Stark’s pleasure to spark off his own - a simple, selfish thing, but it leaves him shuddering against Stark in the dream, gasping for breath.

 

**9.**  
 _You remember what happened to the last people who kidnapped me?_

_We’re in Stark Tower; don’t be dramatic. We know you’re talking to Loki in Asgard. Time to explain that._

It's the assassin, perched on a low table, sitting on Stark's metal suitcase. And behind her, his archer. Two arrows already loosed, one still pinning Stark by his sleeve. Stark's thoughts are frozen chaos, like flurries of ice. The cost of the suit; of Hawkeye's bow; of the arrows. The seconds it would take to summon the suit that Romanova has not captured. "It's fine," Stark tells him. "Under control."

"Of course," Loki thinks, laughs at him. "You are all friends, after all." And that - triggers something, some memory, he's not certain what but Stark's thoughts grow colder still.

"The best," Stark assures him - and bares his teeth at his teammates.

_I’ve gotten us information about the Chitauri. That’s on file, if you bothered to look. It’s rude not to answer questions, Widow._

_We looked. And the Einstein-Rosen bridge? You’ve been asking Doctor Foster’s assistant strange questions._

_I’m pretty sure he’s fucking with me on purpose, there._

"I do not understand why you will not summon your suit and kill them. I will slaughter you all when I return, anyway."

"Great, fine, do that." 

_We need to know what you've told him,_ the woman reminds him. _And how you are communicating._ All business; Loki wonders why she didn't start with sex, considering Stark's weaknesses.

"I don't get naked with people who've stabbed me. Personal rule."

Stark shrugs, then scowls at the arrow holding his arm. _If he breaks parole, I'll have to change my passwords. He magicked the phone I gave Thor. Set up a direct link. Steady interval just over once a day. Decreasing duration, should be gone inside six months. I can talk, or watch. I usually don't watch, house arrest is boring._ Stark smiles at them again. _But I'm going to have a bitch of a time convincing him we're all great friends after this one._

 _He can see us now,_ Natasha says without any shift in expression.

"Stark, you believe they mean to harm you," Loki tries again. “Call for your suit.” It is - unpleasant, standing by while Stark refuses to protect himself. The archer has taken aim - at Stark's eye, not his heart, so his device cannot protect him. "You would deal with this sensibly if you recognized them as enemies." 

Stark finishes the thought: because when his friends screw him over, he probably deserved it. “I’m not calling in the Iron Man.”

He smiles down the archer's arrow, then turns to Black Widow. _Since right after you ruined my suit. Don't like having an audience? Then tell Barton to fire. Otherwise, let me deal with the situation and get your bugs out of my workshop before I send you both back to those sad SHIELD-issue cupboards._

And Clint doesn't move, but something changes in Natasha's face, and he stands down when she gestures. _If we have any more trouble with Loki, you'll get the same surveillance that Barton does. We aren't your enemies, Stark._

 _Of course not,_ he smiles. _I know that._

 

 **10.**  
“Not my lucky night,” Stark says, pouring a drink. “Someone should tell Cap it’s not cheating when your girl picks them out for you. Someone else, I mean, he doesn’t believe me.” 

“That is important to you, that he trust you?” Stark spent a week barely sleeping and moving his workshop to a new floor, without - as far as Loki knows - sharing his reasons with the Captain..

“It’s important that he stop cockblocking me. Cap-blocking. Don’t try to make trouble.”

“I don’t know why you’re giving me this information,” Loki lies. He and Stark have danced around the question of Stark’s dream for long enough that it is again night on Midgard, beyond its bright-lit cities. (Stark Industries powers one-point-six percent of those lights, still a niche player; the information is his without prompting.) Stark remains unsatisfied with the answers he has given, and he has enjoyed Stark’s uncertainty.

“Don’t they have phone sex in Asgard?”

He can’t help catching Stark’s meaning. Replies plainly: “No.” 

“I can’t tell if that’s no but I’m open to experiments in extremely safe sex, or just no. I’ve got toys.”

“Toys. What do you intend those for, Stark?”

Stark grins, deciding he’s won agreement. “Why don’t you tell me?” 

“How to use your own devices.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Giving orders? I show you what they do, you tell me what to do.”

Giving orders. Stark has the right of it, and his satisfaction is galling. But then, Stark did volunteer to provide his own punishment. 

“See? I have all the good ideas.”


	3. Chapter 3

**11.**  
(Shit, not again. You’re on Asgard. I’m in my workshop. Not sure I can weld when you’re - blue? And your brother’s there, and - should I have known you were a Smurf?)

I am busy. Thor is not my brother. And never was, it was all - 

(Lies, right. Think he bought into it, though. Wish I could talk to him. About you, don’t get offended.)

Because talking about someone behind their back is - 

(You keep up with the crazy, we can do it in the same room, no problem - hey, is he alright? That’s a lot of ice. Should I be thwarting you now?)

Thor is well, is always well. Thor is forgiven. Odin is out of _options_ for sons.

(He could take the Captain America imitation too far, is all. You want some advice from the voice in your head?)

No.

(Figured not. In case you want to think about your bad decisions later, it would have been ‘duck’.)

 

**12.**

“Hey, about time you got online. I’m bored, how’s tricks?”

There’s a haziness in Stark’s mind and senses that he doesn’t understand. “Were you asleep?”

“No, no. Hanging out. Talk to me, will you?” 

Instead of answering, Loki tries to take inventory of Stark’s situation. It’s dark. He’s wearing armor - the portable suit that’s too lightweight for anything but publicity. 

“Stop that, I can talk, I’m talking. There were - I dunno, fuzzy things. Like bunnies without the ears, and they were - Not yours, I hope, because seriously, sorry, I’ll buy you some goldfish.”

“You are impaired.”

“Yeah, don’t do drugs. Except for medical purposes, this is totally medical.”

“Then you are in a -” he does remember the word. “A house of disease - healers.”

“Hospital, sure, I’m right next to one, can we talk? Are you finished with your Ice Capades thing?” But Loki rifles through Stark’s addled mind for the truth of it, and falls silent. “They’ll dig me out soon,” Stark says. Perhaps aloud it sounds convincing, but he can see the fatigue, pain, doubt swirling in Stark’s mind. 

He had his fill of all three, only recently; does not care to share in Stark’s discomforts. “One of these tales is false,” Loki says, and recounts stories from his youth. Is pleased when Stark chooses the second, the one of Thor trying to be kind without subtlety. None of the tales are lies; he does it again, and all are, and he takes pleasure in telling Stark he was wrong, and lying again about how. Stark fails to notice.

“Where are these worthless friends of yours?”

“Soon, soon, okay? Hawkeye moved back in, we’re all good. Hey, tell me another.” Loki indulges him - but when he says, “which?” there is no answer.

 

**13.**

His pacings take him out of his chambers, the guard scrambling to keep up. Thor is on the practice ground. There are racks of weapons, nearly within reach, not all of them blunted.

And then Thor is striding off the field, dropping his spear like a fool (twice a fool, to choose a spear against Sif). His hands clench, aching for a weapon, and he lets it show in his face before turning away.

Thor catches him in the corridor, grabs his arm and waves the guard back. If he’d taken a knife, he could gut him now, and Thor hasn’t even thought of it. Complacent idiot. “Brother. Loki, what is the matter?” Thor watches his face, not his hands, as if that will show anything he does not wish it to.

He finds a voice to answer him. “Your mortal friends are dying. I thought you might care to know.”

“Why do you tell me this?” Thor demands. “How have you learned it?” He smiles slightly and pulls out Stark’s phone. 

“Some manner of animal, alien to them. A building fell on the iron man.” Watches Thor’s face fall into grief as he turns it over and feels the magic on it, and it’s perfect. Until he opens his mouth.

“I beg your forgiveness, brother. I would have you join me in this battle.”

He laughs. “Join you? You have no path to Midgard, and your friends are no friends of mine.” It’s funny, it really is. “You remember, I tried to kill them myself?”

“Yes,” Thor says, and looks away. He speaks to the phone and not to his brother’s smile. “They will know what you have done for them now, Loki, I promise you. Forgive me, but Heimdal would not let you pass.” He presses the device into Loki’s hand, and then he’s gone, and no reason for Loki to stay.

* * *

They come for him in the night, it’s half luck that he’s still dressed. Turning over the phone and the situation in his mind. The Bifrost repaired so quickly, he had not expected that. They keep things from him - news and sharp edges both - but he thought he would hear that much. So Thor goes to the rescue of Midgard, and possibly the Avengers, and possibly the Iron Man, and then - then there are no consequence he knows of, unless Thor brings back a mortal wife for Asgard to reckon with. Still, he is summoned.

He lets himself be marched up the rainbow bridge, up to Odin and Frigga and Heimdall, shoved to his knees before them, and then they move so he can see past them. The Bifrost is a sketch of itself, skeletal and treacherous. But Thor had meant to travel to Midgard. Thor being Thor, there was no second meaning in his words. Thor being Thor, he had no other road.

“Do you know why I followed my brother so closely, when we were young? Into every one of his foolhardy scrapes? It was not for love. It was only better than being called in to explain his idiocies.” He could be speaking to no-one at all, for all the sound made. He does not look to see if they attend. “Shall I jump after him?” and it doesn’t come out as he intends it at all, not calm and bitter, but tight and wild, and he realizes: he would. There is something wrong with him, like a sickness, a chill that doesn’t touch him.

“Thor is on Midgard,” Heimdall says. “And will stay until the Bifrost is repaired,” Odin adds. His mother says nothing at all, or perhaps she does. They want to know what lies he told Thor. But he used none, needed none, and cannot say why Thor believed him.

 **14.**  
“Loki?”

He will not answer. This matter is over, no matter that the spell is not.

“Do you have an audience or something? Loki?” And Stark starts thinking of everything he might have said that might have irritated him. Radiating puzzlement and annoyance and - “Is it because of Thor? Because you know I like him, and where the hell else would he go? Cap’s couch in Brooklyn?”

. . .

“Is it because I know _you_ still like him? I wouldn’t tell him. But you should talk to him.”

And the next time: “Hello? You’re not serious about this, are you, this not-talking thing? Because I had a bet with myself that Pepper would get sick of me first. You don’t even have anything going on over there, except that one winter wonderland episode. I’m asking Thor about that, you know.”

“Fuck you anyway, crazy,” Stark says finally, and when he starts spending the time of the link writing instructions for his computers, Loki knows he’s won.


	4. Chapter 4

**15.**

Today Stark is keyed up - apprehensive. And early, Loki realizes - it is still an hour shy of the proper time.

Or perhaps Earth has moved in the heavens, and caused both events.

Stark does not seem that disturbed; nor does he rise to Loki’s bait.

It takes a moment, a heartbeat to recognize Stark, _here_ , in the doorway. Thor hovering over his shoulder with his usual tentative expression - he’d stab him just to never see that again.

Stark wears a suit of cloth, not iron, perhaps the same one he wore in the battle. Appears tired, but healthy. Loki tries to think if he moved badly, in that one step he takes into the room. He holds a box, metal, sets it down on the table.

“New suit, there aren’t words for how ruined that one was,” Stark says, casually breaking their tacit agreement to ignore the link, turning his attention to the rest of the room. Thor hovers at the edge of the threshold. “Not bad, for a holding cell. I assume there’s something more permanent in the works?”

Loki looks sideways at Thor. Thor has not crossed the threshold, hangs in the doorway as though he’s finally grasped how unwelcome he is. “Nothing has been decided,” he tells Stark, fidgeting and looking anywhere but at Loki. So he is free to openly watch his brother twist between his misplaced loyalty and doubtless a promise to Odin. Some decision has been reached, then: death or imprisonment or exile, to be imposed at Odin Allfather’s whim. No doubt he will be informed at length.

Thor breaks before Stark can reply. “I will go and return, to give you time to speak?” 

Stark shrugs, as though he’s missed Thor’s misery, Loki’s sudden fury. “He doesn’t talk; I’ve got nothing to say. C’mon, where’s the arms and armor hall?”

And that is all; they leave Loki with his unvoiced questions and his anger. He seethes through the tour of the hall, the old stories of the artifacts of the wars with the frost giants, that restore his brother so easily to good cheer.

The link does not end in the hour after midday, and Loki thinks with a stab of satisfaction that Stark was wrong with his calculations. Short-lived, because he truly would have this connection broken.

“That’s your field, genius. Get on it.” Stark, sudden and clear as though he had been waiting for an opportunity to speak. 

“You sound like your father,” Loki shoots back.

“Fuck off.” Which also sounds like Stark’s father, but he’s made his point, and has other matters to attend to.

The container - a metal container in Iron Man’s colors - contains Midgardian food. Cookies, he recognizes. Stark, keeping his promises.

 

**16.**

The funny thing is, Stark was trying to be careful. But still overmatched by Asgardian meads and toasts, and with Loki’s assistance gets himself thoroughly lost after he leaves the feast. The third time through the same corridor, he realizes, and tells Loki to go to hell again. 

And then he knocks on the door.

“How did you,” Loki starts, standing.

Stark shuts the door behind him with exaggerated care. “Ask me no questions, and I won’t talk about Thor. He’s got some funny ideas, you know. About what your problem is. Are.”

“And the guard?”

“There was a force-field thing. Keyed to a necklace?” 

“Ah - green lines.”

“More a reddish - forget I said anything, are you supposed to be interested in that? Your tour sucked, Thor’s was better.”

“I do not care to be ignored, Stark.”

Stark sits down - on his bed - and laughs at him. “ _You_ don’t, that’s rich. You complete shit.” 

“You came to get the link broken. Do you think insulting me will aid in that.”

“You won’t bend enough to ask for the books you’d need, I caught that. There’s some girl, something like Amanda? Said she could fix it, but I dunno. Something about letting pretty girls tinker with my head, maybe. And it’s running down.”

“Amora,” Loki mislikes that she even had the opportunity. ”Your suspicions are not unwarranted.” 

“Amora. Glad my evil-sorcerer-sense isn’t totally on the fritz. I just wanted to say, thanks for sending Thor our way. You have the gratitude of a grateful - just me probably.”

“Which you will offer to express with sexual favors.” Stark blinks at him. “It is your habit, when you drink.”

“Jesus. Okay, yeah: I think we should try the sex. You could stand to stop brooding for an hour or two.”

Loki laughs - and again when Stark realizes he’s being insulted. “Are you kidding? I’m the one who should be worried, you’ve been out of the game so long you’ve forgotten what that thing between your legs is for.”

It is nothing like their fumblings through the link - more familiar and intimate, more like that dream of Stark’s. “Knew that was you,” Stark mutters. “You’re not bad for a shut-in. And I think you broke my dick.” Loki reminds himself again that mortals are fragile. “Just my dick, otherwise good to go. Unless you’re tired.” And he hooks an arm around Loki’s neck, grins a challenge at him.

* * *

Stark hits the mattress, immediately sits up.. “Mmh. Jarvis, time? Oh, right, and you can’t tell time without a sundial. Call it a draw, I guess?” Stark is strangely disjointed - exhaustion, but for once without the noise of his insomnia. 

“The link,” Loki says first. Stark looks perplexed, and does not look less perplexed.

“It’s...gone? Back to the regular schedule?”

“It is finished.”

Stark falls back against the mattress. “We broke the mystical link through space and time by _fucking?_ ”

“Obviously.”

“Did you know that was going to happen? I can’t wait to tell Cap. You can have Thor, I’m scared he’d be enthusiastic. Need to talk to him anyway.”

“Your interference in my affairs is not acceptable.”

“S’not interference, it’s _advice_ , best you’ll get. Throw me out of bed at dawn or something, huh?”

And Stark lies on his bed, insensible, familiar and unfamiliar and it is strange, not to know whether he dreams. 

 

**17.**

Thor returns alone, and Loki stares at him. The other Avengers must have departed; Thor would not have abandoned them. “Brother.”

“I would be alone.”

“That is a part of the difficulty, is it not? The Man of Iron is a great hero,” he says awkwardly.

“He has no heart,” Loki reminds him. “He put metal in its place, a starburst of iron.”

Thor has the sense to look disturbed. “He fights bravely.” Loki imagines Stark with the Chitauri, with - but he was not lost. “And he spoke well of you, after his manner.” Thor is transparent.

“Any dead man can fight bravely. That is done; the spell is finished. I have nothing now to do with your new friends. Have you come to tell me what has been decided?”

“I cannot speak of it.” But Thor looks worried, looks older with it. Whatever his punishment, Thor would have him avoid it? Is this the sort of king he will be, fretting over hopeless choices? He had never doubted that his brother would _enjoy_ being king.

“It makes little difference,” Loki says. The lie in his his flat, disinterested tone, not the words.


	5. Chapter 5

**Epilogue.**

“Again, not my fault,” Tony claims, eyes on the map he likes to call the big board. “Yes, I smuggled him a cell phone. Yes, it’s better than the ones I sold you. _And_ it has all the cool games. Know what I didn’t give him? A way to get _here_. Trust me that even my GPS does not work on Asgard. And havoc is a big improvement over the full-scale invasion we got last time he visited.”

“Tell that to Texas.”

“Tell me how an ice sheet doesn’t improve Texas? Asgard doesn’t want him back. Jotunheim would, maybe, if we could find it. He’s on his own here, far as we know he isn’t enslaving people, I think we should let it play out.”

And then Thor strides in to inform them that his brother escaped his imprisonment and appears to have returned to Midgard, and Odin deeply regrets the inconvenience, and the usual diplomatic bullshit that stops a ways short of requesting the fugitive’s return. Tony honestly does not understand how everyone else in the room keeps a straight face. 

“Sorry, sorry,” he says, so they don’t throw him out of the meeting when his best ally for his ‘watch and wait’ strategy just got here. “Thor, I’m guessing Asgard’s dungeons are out of commission?” 

“Regrettably so, Man of Iron!” Thor booms, and either he’s a great liar or Loki did a number on them for fun.

His phone buzzes, and he slips a look under the table, hand cupped to hide it from Steve. So the god of mischief and mayhem answers texts. Tony feels smug about his Starkphone contingency plan until the photo loads. It’s his garage, one of them, he’s pretty sure the one in Vegas. Message: _I took one of the black ones_.

He emails Jarvis for an immediate inventory on all his properties, and wonders if Hawkeye's figured out how to shoot a god so he stays dead.


End file.
